


Vanishing

by CodePurple



Category: Mother 1 | EarthBound Zero | EarthBound Beginnings
Genre: Alien Invasion, Gen, Paranormal, Psychic Abilities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 15:16:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9241181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CodePurple/pseuds/CodePurple
Summary: The disappearances, the poltergeists, the chaos interrupted previously idyllic life. It's only fitting that George sought to interrupt them, in turn.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to preface this by saying that this fic was written for the January Monthly Prompt on Starmen.net. The prompt itself was "new beginnings", and I was inspired thusly to write about George and Maria. I definitely took some liberties regarding plot and characterization, so I hope that'll be forgiven. Finally, I rarely, if ever, write about heterosexuals, so please be aware that I firmly imagine the two to both be bi. Thanks.

They had been married for twenty years —  twenty short, blissful years when the disappearances began. The eldest of their children were sent off to college to learn, and the youngest were living at home. Both were desperate to fly from the nest. Nevertheless, the disappearances cast a shadow on the once-bright town of Mother’s Day.

 

George investigated this news story like he investigated all of his stories, like he lived his life: vivaciously and intently.

 

People were vanishing at random; at nighttime, during church, in the streets. They would show up days or weeks later with no memory, no idea of what had happened to them. At the same time, ghosts or demons or some such were haunting houses, with lights flickering, stationary objects floating, being thrown in midair.

 

Everyone had theories, of course. Some elders believed it was an act of God, punishing the sinful. Others believed the Devil was at work, trying to push the former Puritan community to evil. One youngster suggested it may be the work of a trickster god of old, using Mother’s Day as its own playground. He was quickly shut up by his mother, pulling on his ear and telling him to quit acting like a heathen.

 

But George collected these theories like candy, listened to hours of interviews on the vanished, and their friends and family. He seriously considered travelling to the Mount Itoi to see if some weirder theories were true. Maria talked him out of it. The second he brought it up, her fingers slammed on the piano, and she rebuked him, reminding him of the accidental deaths that inevitably occurred when someone visited.

 

But then, but  _ then _ , Sunday afternoon in town, the couple vanished before their sons’ eyes, the twins’ identical faces contorting in horror.

 

Their grandparents quietly took them in, waiting for the day they would reappear.

 

That day would not come.

 

.

 

The space aliens that kidnapped them were strange. Men from the stars, with metallic skin and painful, devilish power.

 

The building was made of grey metal, dirty and segmented. The lights were red, and they blared even at what the humans assumed to be nighttime. Buttons, buzzing, clicks and whirrs frequented the air.

 

The aliens spoke an apathetic form of English, barking orders as they took measurements and experimented. Skin, hair, blood samples were taken, person by person, more swift than the punishments given to those who would not comply.

 

Finally, they tried taking something else, with some alien mind power. Instantly, Maria felt drained, as if she’d just lifted a boulder mentally.

 

“THE FEMALE HAS PK,” one of the men stated, and Maria was taken somewhere else.

  
  
  


A strange looking man, not the same as the other alien men, looked at her in the eyes. She noticed his stark white skin and inhuman body shape. She noticed a tail, even. She did not know what it was, what it wanted, or what to do.

 

Her hands were shaking.

 

_ Greetings, human. _ Maria jumped.  _ My apologies, I was informed that you possessed psychokinetic power and wished to see you. _

 

“Psychokinetic? I, I'm sorry, what is that? Who are you?” she stuttered and mentally berated herself.

 

_ It matters not. However, you possess a gene which allows a mental bond to be created between a member of my species and yourself. This bond is required for children to grow, but on this ship, we have no females to facilitate the mother-bond. _

 

_ You will be raising a prophecy child with this bond, and if you do this, your planet may be spared from destruction from our empire. _

 

_ Will you do this? _

 

“Yes,” Maria breathed, terrified of this speech and what it meant, “but I have one request: my husband must be allowed to stay with me.”

 

_ It is done. _

 

.

 

Maria came back to herself, ears ringing, throat raw. She had been screaming. Maria swallowed, the saliva burning as it went down. She opened her eyes, disoriented. 

 

A white cat sat on her chest, but her arms were wrapped tightly around it, shielding it like she would a child.

 

_ My child _ , something in her whispered.  _ He is my child, to be protected and raised and cared for. _

  
  


The cat… the boy? started wagging his tail, happy to see her awake. She held him and looked around her new room. Metal. Grey.

 

George hovered over her, saying words her ringing ears couldn’t make out.

 

_ Hush, _ her mind said to him, and he quieted immediately. 

 

Her eyes widened, as she processed that, and suddenly shut them again, liquid pressing out of the edges.

  
_ This is our new beginning, _ she told herself.  _ This is a blessing in disguise. _


End file.
